The prospect of fine weather very often induces the captain to take on board as many as there is standing-room for in his vessel, on both upper and lower deck, in both of which the poor animals are jammed as close as they can possibly be stowed. The sufferings of the oxen in hot and oppressive weather, taken at once from the invigorating atmosphere of their native mountains, and exposed to the thick and almost suffocating steam (proceeding from their own bodies) which they must necessarily breathe in the place of their confinement, will be more easily deplored than described. So oppressive is the heat, on many occasions, in the lower deck of the bullock-vessels, that the men employed to look after the unfortunate animals can scarcely stay more than ten minutes there, except immediately under the hatchways; and such of the oxen as chance, from their situation, or other causes, to be more affected by the closeness of the atmosphere than the rest, are obliged to be dragged up continually to the deck above, to prevent them from dying of suffocation. We are sorry to say that our own experience enables us to speak decidedly on these points; for as there was no other vessel in the harbour of Bengazi, when we left the coast, than a bullock-vessel, and no other expected to arrive, we were obliged to take a passage in the only one of them then remaining. As we experienced, nearly the whole voyage, the most provoking calms, our passage was an unusually long one; and independently of the extreme inconvenience (to use the mildest term) which we experienced ourselves, we had to witness a scene of suffering which we shall never forget, and which we would willingly have gone through much more than we experienced to have avoided. It is indeed scarcely possible to conceive that human nature could be really so degraded from its rank in creation, as it appears to be in the persons of those who form the crew of a bullock-vessel. And yet many of them are not, on other occasions, cruel men—but the constant habit of witnessing and inflicting sufferings, which they seem to think matters of course, has so blunted their kinder feelings in the discharge of this particular duty, that one might almost blush (on witnessing their conduct) at being classed in the same species with them[8]. The horrors of slave-ships are happily for the most part abolished, through the humanity and the influence of Englishmen; and if the government of Malta were acquainted with the horrors of bullock-vessels, they would surely take means to prevent the recurrence of them. Let us hope that some Martin may arise in the Mediterranean who will exert himself in bringing this about; we will answer for it, he will never sit down to a piece of beef without feelings of more than usual satisfaction.